The Bureau: Wretched Machines

“Any final words, you miserable, worthless whore of a foal?”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes opened. She was standing in a room filled with other ponies. Pegasi, to be exact. These ponies were wearing suits and sadistic smiles as they watched a small, injured, orange teenager look up into Rainbow Dash’s eyes. These…guards, or soldiers, or whatever they were, were all visibly armed. Rainbow Dash looked down at the small teenager in front of her. She had an orange coat with a messy fuchsia mane. She was covered in small bruises and cuts. She was Scootaloo. My daughter, a small part of Dash thought. My daughter. What happened to her? She looked down at herself. Hell, what happened to me?

Rainbow Dash was wearing a black bodysuit that was, for some reason, covered in warm, wet, dark red blood. Yellow feathers were sticking to the blood, along with small bits of muscle. Dash looked upwards and into a large, reflective, chrome surface on the other side of the room. She looked at herself. To her, it looked like she was still looking down at Scootaloo, with a completely insane look in her bloodshot eyes. Speaking of blood, the viscous liquid was all over her face and mane, dampening it with its macabre moisture. She looked upwards even more and saw orange and red on the surface, which turned out to be some kind of machine, complete with visible, exposed pistons and cogs. She realized that there was also a brown shape with wings caught between the machine and the ceiling. More red seeped from the brown figure. With a chill going down her spine, she realized that the red was blood and that the brown figure was a dead pegasus. One half of her conscience said, Who could do such a thing? while some other half of her said, You did, Rainbow Dash, and you enjoyed every second of it. It is your job, after all. Her job? What the hell did that mean?

Scootaloo looked into Rainbow Dash’s eyes. She said, “You have beautiful eyes.” Rainbow Dash, without control, stepped forwards and brought a hoof down towards Scootaloo’s orange, quivering body. Just as the hoof connected and made a sickening snap, Rainbow Dash woke up.

Her pillow was damp with a mixture of tears and cold sweat, along with her mattress. She was crying, sweating, and turning in her sleep. Thank Celestia it was just a dream, she thought to herself. Just as she was about to try and fall back into the peaceful respite commonly known as sleep, her adopted daughter called out to her.

“MOMMY!”

“Scootaloo? What’s wrong?”

“Mommy, come here! Please!”

Rainbow Dash sped out of bed and towards her little foal’s room. When she opened up the door, she found Scootaloo balled up in the fetal position, shaking and crying to herself. She had wet the bed. Rainbow Dash ran towards Scootaloo and embraced her in her arms. “What’s wrong, baby?”

“I…I had a nightmare.”

Dash brought Scootaloo close. Scootaloo’s speech was punctuated by sobs every few words.

“Who was in it?”

“You and me…and other ponies. A few that I thought I knew, even though I don’t.”

“What happened?”

“Well…um…I was on the floor. You were looking down on me, and you were covered in red stuff. You were wearing, like, a black suit or something, and there were yellow feathers on you, and you had a really scary look in your eyes and you were smiling. There were other ponies surrounding us, and they had suits and stuff. And you said, like, ‘Any final words, you miserable, worthless whore of a foal?’ and I said, like, ‘You have beautiful eyes,’ or something, and then you punched me, and it hurt, a lot. As soon as you punched me, I woke up, and… I guess you know the rest. Mommy, what’s a whore?”

Rainbow Dash looked at Scootaloo and started to stroke her filly’s mane in long, gentle strokes. “Don’t worry about it, Scootaloo. Everything’s okay, baby. Everything’s okay…” Rainbow Dash focused her attention on a photograph of her and Scootaloo from early in the summer. They had stopped for ice cream that afternoon, since it had been particularly hot. Scootaloo got one scoop of chocolate in a waffle cone, while Dash had gotten two scoops of vanilla in a waffle cone. They both loved waffle cones. The savory treat had quickly started to melt on them, and that resulted in that picture of them uncontrollably laughing while ice cream got all over their faces and hooves. Soarin had taken the picture, since the three had become increasingly close since the Best Young Fliers Competition, which Rainbow Dash had gloriously won with the famous Sonic Rainboom. Looking at the picture made her think about her nightmare, which was exactly the same, albeit the point of view. How could she kill Scootaloo like that? Why would she kill Scootaloo like that? Dash’s voice started to shake, too. “It’s okay, baby…it’s all okay…mommy’s here now…it’s okay…there’s nothing to be afraid of…”

There was something to be afraid of. And Rainbow Dash, for one, was deathly terrified of it, and there was only one organization that could help. An organization she was a part of.

The Bureau.